Peer-to-peer (P2P) for delivery of content between the peers of a network is now common place. As an example, P2P file sharing systems are well known in the industry and use a very efficient technology to deliver media. Examples for such P2P systems are BitTorrent® and Gnutella. These systems do not distribute the content in real-time, rather, a user can download the content (files) and view it only when the download has completed, i.e., a user cannot view the file (e.g., a movie) while downloading it. New P2P networks enable real-time streaming content over P2P networks. PCT application number PCT/IL2007/000392 entitled “Realtime Media Distribution in a P2P Network”, by Omer Luzzatti, et al (hereinafter “Luzzatti”), assigned to common assignee and incorporated herein by reference, discloses an exemplary real-time P2P network where nodes in the network can act in the role of ‘amplifiers’ to increase the total available bandwidth made available in the network, thus improving the quality of the media consumed by the viewers.
Providers of real-time streaming content, e.g., video broadcasters, also referred to sometimes as encoders, need to deliver significant amounts of video content to certain remote nodes. Such nodes are generally located at a multiple system operator (MSO) or Telco head-end, and then from these nodes to the viewers via various technologies. Such content delivery is typically done by the use of satellites positioned in outer space, where the broadcaster transmits the streaming content to one or more such satellites in space which then retransmit such streaming content to ground stations for delivery into certain nodes. While certainly known to be operative the problem is that such transmission has a high cost. On the other hand, the broadcaster cannot connect directly for broadcasting to the local, last mile network, over an Internet protocol (IP) network. The IP network does not guarantee the transfer of all the packets and loss of such packets is detrimental to real-time delivery of video content. Further, interferences impacting the broadcast are not distributed in a statically even distribution as far as each packet over the Internet is concerned, therefore certain streaming content may be impacted more significantly than other streaming content.
It would be therefore advantageous to provide a solution that would enable the broadcast of streaming content having real-time sensitivities, such as video content, over the IP network to eliminate the need to use space-based satellite communication in the process of broadcasting such streaming content to the nodes of the P2P network. Furthermore, it would further advantageous to provide a solution that would enable reliable transfer of such streaming content over an unreliable transmission link under certain time constraints via various different paths, e.g., different Internet service providers (ISPs) and then reliably recollection at the node.